Jean Bolognia, M.D., and Irwin Braverman, M.D., will present nine patients of Dr. Peter Parker (YC 1831, YMS 1834) as portrayed in the Historical Library’s paintings by Lam Qua. A medical missionary, Parker founded a hospital in Canton and commissioned portraits (1836-1855) of over one hundred patients, many of whom had large tumors. In 1888, he bequeathed his collection of paintings to the Pathology Department of the Yale Medical School. The paintings were transferred to the Historical Library in the early 1970’s. Case reports of many of the patients survive, providing valuable insights. Today, the collection draws researchers in history of medicine, art, religion, clinical medicine and bioethics.

This small exhibit highlights protest posters from the 1980s and 1990s, including those of the organization Physicians for Social Responsibility opposing the neutron bomb.

On view, also, are Keith Haring’s “No Nukes” and multiple images of the “mushroom cloud” in calls for action. A popular novelty poster advises-- “When the bomb goes off, make sure you are higher than the bomb.”

New York City’s Statue of Liberty appears in three posters in which she warns of pollution and climate change.

“The Soviet government is waging a relentless battle against venereal diseases…Participation in this battle is everyone’s duty….”

In commemoration of the centennial of the Russian Revolution, the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library joins the Yale University Libraries--Beinecke, CSSI, Gilmore Music Library, Haas Arts Library, and Manuscripts and Archives in sharing works from our collections pertaining to this era and event.

Join us to view "A Revolutionary Public Health Campaign," 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Historical Library, Wednesday, September 27, 2017.

The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library will show a very rare portfolio of posters, "Venereal Diseases and the Fight Against Them, 1928, created by the People’s Commissariat on Health." Designed for exhibition and use in public lectures, the portfolio was distributed throughout the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

Historical Illustrations of Skin Disease: Selections from the New Sydenham Society Atlas 1860-1884

The Atlas of Skin Diseases was among the first publications undertaken, in 1859, by the New Sydenham Society.

Time-consuming and costly to produce, it was issued in seventeen parts over a period of twenty-four years.

In this exhibit, Yale dermatologists Jean Bolognia and Irwin Braverman present the celebrated nineteenth century illustrations to a current clinical audience, making a relevant teaching point with each plate. Twenty-five of the Atlas’ forty-nine plates are selected for display. They depict cutaneous diseases ranging from the common, e.g. psoriasis and eczema, to the rare, e.g. iododerma and systematized epidermal nevi. Examples of skin signs of systemic disease, including Addison’s disease, neurofibromatosis, and lupus erythematosus, are also shown. The emotional toll which these chronic diseases inflicted upon patients is a striking feature of the many portraits on view.

The exhibit is curated by Drs. Jean Bolognia and Irwin Braverman, Professors of Dermatology at the School of Medicine, and Susan Wheeler, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Library.

The Medical Historical Library has recently acquired a collection of twenty-nine posters and digital works on themes of social justice and health care by artist/activist Rachael Romero. Many works date from 1975 to 1982 and were created by Ms. Romero for the San Francisco Poster Brigade which she co-founded. Originally displayed on city streets—often on the sides of buildings—the posters bear messages such as “Decent Housing is a Basic Right.” and “Preventive Medicine, Not Costly Operations.”

Documented in the collection is “The Fight for the International Hotel,” which became a local cause cèlébre in 1976-78 when the hotel which provided low cost accommodations and community was threatened by, and subsequently razed for, development.

Two recent original digital works reflect Ms. Romero’s personal odyssey through diagnosis and treatment of a brain tumor.

The Perfect Man recently acquired by the Historical Library on view in the Cushing Rotunda

Join us for an exhibit tour of selected acquisitionswith curator Susan WheelerWednesday, February 19, at 12 noon

In 1895, the original bodybuilder Eugen Sandow was proclaimed “the perfect man” by Dudley Sargent (YMS 1878). In 1827, former slave Belfast Burton was paid tribute by his patients and mentor in a rare broadside testimonial circulated in Philadelphia. In 1871, J.J. Woodward shared the first micrographs taken in sunlight with the Surgeon General. In 1891, Victor Emile Prouvé employed the most delicate coloring to render opium’s intoxicating sleep state in an art print distributed through subscription portfolio. In 1902, James Haran, British medical officer in newly founded Nairobi, attended all the victims of plague (the first of many outbreaks) leaving complete case records. In 1922, artist Käthe Kollwitz created pro bono a poster announcing public events during Anti-Alcohol Week in Schöneberg, a locality of Berlin. In 1978, Rachel Romero and the San Francisco Poster Brigade plastered the city with activist art “To Hell with their Profits: Stop Forced Drugging of Psychiatric Inmates” produced for the Mental Patients Liberation Movement.

These and other acquisitions are on view through May 2, 2014. They are a small sampling of the substantial number of acquisitions through endowment made by the Historical Library, Cushing\Whitney Medical Library.

“Combat Art,” created by designated soldier artists, was widely exhibited during World War II and also illustrated popular publications such as LIFE magazine.

Clements C. Fry, Yale psychiatrist and collector, purchased this drawing in 1946 after having seen it in an exhibition in Washington, D.C., where he served on the National Research Council.

On request, the artist Corporal Wayne Seese provided a description:

The “Crack Up” came from a scene I witnessed on the island of New Britain, after the Cape Gloucester campaign….One night as we sat in our tent, Bedlam broke out across the street at sick bay. Rushing over there, we came upon the scene I have put down on paper.

Yelling, sobbing, and talking, the kid was held down by a couple of his buddies while the doctor prepared a sedative. The scene was pretty weird with hundreds of fellows drawn by morbid curiosity standing in the darkness….

The kid was a rugged looking boy about nineteen or twenty, a messman at the time. He stepped out of his tent and in the darkness ran into a tree and went to pieces. Rumor was that he had just received a letter that both his mother & father were killed in an accident, but I don’t know.

Wayne Seese served with the First Marine Division in the South Pacific campaign

U.S. Government Printing Office for the U.S. Navy, Industrial Incentive Division

Purchased through the John F. Fulton Fund 2012

During World War II, the Industrial Incentive Division of the U.S. Navy sought to improve morale among workers in U.S. industrial plants by emphasizing the importance of the plant’s products in the overall war effort. The morale initiative, begun in May of 1943, employed audio interviews and other messages piped in through speaker systems in the workplace; exhibited combat action photographs, specially commissioned posters and combat motion pictures in the workplace; and arranged for returned combat personnel to visit the plants engaged in war production.

This recently acquired poster, created to boost the morale of defense industry workers during World War II, is on view through April 12, 2013